Social Action & Science

Being With DyingThis Professional Training Program for Clinicians in Compassionate Care of the Seriously Ill and Dying is fostering a revolution in care of the dying and seriously ill. Clinicians learn essential tools for taking care of dying people with skill and compassion.

ChaplaincyA visionary and comprehensive two-year program for a new kind of chaplaincy to serve individuals, communities, the environment, and the world.

SESSHIN: Timeless Spring - SPECIAL OFFER PRICING!

Instructors:
Sensei Shinzan Palma * Joshin Brian Byrnes

Description:

PLEASE NOTE THAT WE HAVE LOWERED THE PRICING AS A SPECIAL OFFER FROM $390/MEMBERS TO $350 AND FROM $430/NON-MEMBERS TO $350.

Sesshin literary means 'gathering the heart/mind'. A sesshin is an intensive zen meditation retreat which allows us to really drop down and engage in our practice. We will observe Noble Silence together.

Timeless Spring Sesshin offers the precious opportunity to let go into the stream of practice and explore the boundless field of who we really are. We sit with spring poems and stories, and writings of some of the great Zen masters of our lineage, whose timeless teachings reside within each of us and point us toward liberation.

In sesshin, we also meet some of the great Zen masters, and explore their lives as each unites history into a single moment and reflects our common human experience, helping us drop all that separates us from one another and opening to a sense of deep connection to one another and the world.

Sesshin is a time for us to gather the mind and heart into balance. Sitting practice, walking meditation, silent meals, work practice, and dharma talks each day invite us into a sense of timelessness.

More about the instructors:

Sensei Shinzan was born in Veracruz, Mexico, He is a zen priest and Dharma Successor of Roshi Joan Halifax. He has been practicing Zen since 1996. In Mexico City, he met Korean Zen Teacher, Ven. Samu Sunim. Shinzan trained in the Buddhist Maitreya Seminar under Samu Sunim as he lived in the Toronto Zen Buddhist Temple for 4 years. He was ordained in 2004 as a Zen Buddhist Priest.

Shinzan arrived at Upaya in 2006 and became a resident and student of Roshi Joan Halifax. He lived there and trained for over 8 years. He received the Dharma transmission on Jan 2015 from Roshi Joan Halifax.

He has taught Zazenkais and Sesshins at Upaya and co-teaches teen retreats in USA.

Shinzan left the residency of Upaya to return to Mexico and start a community spreading the Dharma in Mexico.

His vision is to create a Zen Hispanic community in the USA and Mexico.

Joshin Brian Byrnes, is a Dharma Holder and student of Roshi Joan Halifax, having received Hoshi from her in 2014. He is a Zen priest and currently serves as Upaya's President and point person for the Upaya's residency program. He is also the director of Upaya's Chaplaincy program and is a core faculty member with a focus on systems theory. Joshin has a long background working in social service nonprofits and community philanthropy. He worked in the AIDS epidemic throughout the 1990s and since 2003 has led a variety of community foundations focused on social change and community leadership. His academic background includes undergraduate and graduate work in philosophy at St. Meinrad College and Archabbey, theology at the Aquinas Institute at St. Louis University while he was a member of the Dominican Order, and then early music performance at New England Conservatory of Music, and doctoral work in medieval musicology at New York University. He is ever interested in finding ways of life that are both deeply contemplative and fully engaged with the world.